


Close for Comfort

by naomin



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Era, Caretaking, Community: snkkink, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Manga Spoilers, Sharing a Bed, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 08:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2614496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naomin/pseuds/naomin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Levi's new squad is in the middle of a training exercise far from the nearest town, Armin falls ill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close for Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> Contains references/spoilers for ACWNR, Armin whump, and really dubious made-up diseases.

It’s roughly an hour after Levi’s settled down for the night when someone comes knocking. “Knocking” isn’t quite the word to describe the sound, really, given the fact that this night finds Levi in a tent in a forest somewhere roughly in the middle of nowhere in a remote area not far from Wall Rose, but anyway, someone is banging on the outside of his tent.  
  
Levi groans, tosses his blankets aside and gets to his feet. When he yanks the flap of his tent open, the offender is revealed to be Eren, of course.  
  
“What?” Levi snaps. It’s way too late for this shit. Eren should be asleep by now, tired out by the exercises that have brought him and his friends – his squad, now, Levi mentally reminds himself – all the way out here today. Even if he can’t sleep yet, Eren should _definitely_ know better than to be bothering Levi, unless he has a seriously good reason.  
  
Eren looks startled and rather intimidated by Levi’s appearance – _good_ – but there’s something else in the expression on his face that catches Levi’s attention. “What is it?” Levi says again, when Eren still hasn’t started explaining himself. It comes out less annoyed this time, more insistent. Levi’s already running through things that could constitute “seriously good reasons” in the back of his mind, and none of them are good.  
  
“It’s Armin.” Eren says. He sounds unsure of himself, and nervous in a way that has nothing to do with the glare that Levi’s giving him. _Shit_ , Levi thinks. His gaze flicks automatically over to the tent that Armin and Eren are sharing tonight. It looks every bit as unremarkable and innocuous as the two other tents in the clearing, occupied by Jean and Connie in one and the three girls in the other. Levi can’t see any sign of movement from inside.  
  
“What about Armin? Get to the point, Eren.” For something that’s apparently important enough to go to Levi about, Eren’s being damn _slow_ about it.  
  
“He’s sick.” Eren blurts out.  
  
“ _What?_ ” Levi doesn’t know exactly what he had expected, but that hadn’t been it. His first thought is that what Eren is saying can't even be true. Armin’s been with the rest of the group all day, working together closely as Levi pulled them together into something resembling a proper squad, and he had been fine then. He _had_ to have been, or surely somebody would have noticed…  
  
Levi’s skepticism must show on his face, because Eren immediately starts to stumble over himself explaining. “I didn’t know until we were starting to go to bed, and he tried to tell me that it’s nothing, but he looks _bad_ , Captain, I’m serious-“  
  
“What’s wrong with him?” Levi interrupts impatiently.  
  
“He’s…not acting normal. And he wouldn’t let me check, but I’m sure he’s got a fever.”  
  
“All right,” Levi says, resigned. He walks over to Eren and Armin’s tent, Eren trailing a few steps behind him. On the way, Levi’s vaguely aware of activity inside the other two tents. The others will start coming out to see what’s going on in a minute, almost certainly.  
  
The tent is too small for Levi and Eren to both enter comfortably, so Levi leaves Eren to hover outside. “Coming in, Armin,” he announces as he pulls the tent flap aside.  
  
Armin is sitting on the ground, a blanket pulled around him. He looks none too pleased at Levi’s appearance. “I _said_ , don’t tell him,” he complains, shooting an accusing look at Eren through the half-open tent flap.  
  
Levi looks him up and down. Despite Armin’s protests, and the lack of light in the tent, Levi can already sense that something’s a little off. Armin has enough energy to argue with Eren, apparently, but there’s something slightly unnatural about the way he’s carrying himself.  Levi can tell that Armin is nervous, too, in much the same way Eren is.  
  
“Are you sick, Armin?” he asks.  
  
“It’s nothing, Captain, I’m sure-“  
  
“ _Are you sick?_ ” Levi repeats. It is _definitely_ too late for this.  
  
Armin hesitates, but the look on his face says it all.  
  
“When did this start?”  
  
“Yesterday,” Armin answers reluctantly. Levi can’t help but be a little taken aback – that’s much longer ago than he had expected, before they had even set out early in the morning. “I felt a little bad, but I thought it was just…just the beginning of a cold, or something, so I didn’t want to bother everybody else…”  
  
“But you’re worse now.” Levi guesses.  
  
Armin nods unhappily.  
  
“What’s wrong with you?”  
  
“I don't know,” Armin says slowly. The longer he talks, the more apparent it is that something’s not quite normal. “I don’t know if I’ve ever felt like this before, I just feel… _strange_. Bad. All over.”  
  
Levi’s reached out to feel Armin’s forehead for a fever automatically, but when his fingers make contact he can only barely stop himself from hissing in surprise. Eren’s suspicions had been right on target. Levi’s no expert, but Armin feels like he's running a temperature that would almost certainly get him sent to a doctor immediately under normal circumstances.  
  
He must not be able to hide his reaction all the way, though, because Armin’s determinedly unworried front drops a little further. “Is it bad?” he asks, voice quiet.  
  
“What!?” Eren calls plaintively from outside the tent.  
  
“Be quiet,” Levi snaps. He can hear faint snatches of worried conversation from elsewhere now. The others have started to take notice of what’s going on.  
  
He puts that headache aside for the moment and turns his attention back to Armin, who’s still watching him with worried eyes. “You’ve got a fever,” Levi tells him. “It’s not bad on its own, but being out here makes things more difficult.” He can’t resist adding: “You should have said something a long time ago.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Armin says. His fingers are worrying at the edge of his blanket. “I didn't know, I really thought I was fine…”  
  
“Well, we can’t do anything about it now,” Levi interrupts brusquely. He can’t work up much enthusiasm for scolding Armin now when he’s clearly in such miserable shape, and guilt won’t fix anything, anyway. Most of Levi’s mind is already taken up by weighing his current options. They’re at least a two-hour horse ride away from the nearest signs of civilization, an impossible distance at night and with Armin most likely in no condition to ride anyway. There are some first-aid supplies, but they’re all things that had been gathered with accidental injuries in mind, not anything like this.  
  
As he’s thinking, something else about Armin catches his eye. “Show me your neck, Armin,” he orders.  
  
Armin looks confused, but obediently brushes his hair aside, and tilts his chin up slightly. When Levi reaches out and presses near where his jaw and neck meet, Armin starts, making a little noise of discomfort.  
  
Levi wants to curse. He can feel lumps beneath Armin’s skin, hard and swollen, and it’s hard to get a good look at his skin in the dark tent, but... “Take your shirt off,” he tells Armin, trying to keep his voice firm but calm.  
  
Armin doesn’t look convinced by this, but apparently knows better than to ask Levi what’s wrong. He begins to unbutton his shirt, unsteady fingers making the job painfully slow. Levi grinds his teeth.  
  
At last, the shirt is fully open. Armin shrugs it off his shoulders, and then raises his arms at Levi’s next request.  
  
Levi doesn’t even have to touch Armin this time, he can _see_ it, and his stomach drops.

Back in the filthy, crowded slums of the capitol, disease had spread easily, lack of money for doctors or medicine meaning that even a simple infection could become every bit as deadly as a knife to the throat. Levi has the signs of the most common illnesses drilled into his brain even now, most from watching as somebody else choked on vomit or trembled with fever, and a few from his own experience. Even the most careful – and Levi had been _very_ careful – couldn’t escape falling sick from time to time, and there had been some sicknesses that every young resident of the slum had to endure sooner or later before reaching adulthood. (Or not, in the case of the frail or simply unfortunate.)  
  
There had been one disease in particular that swept through the city’s underbelly with cruel regularity, hitting the poorest individuals the hardest. It could strike its victims at full force before they even had time to properly notice the first symptoms, leaving them devastated by fever and drained of all strength. The disease itself hadn't been as fatal as some – the number of people who became delirious and died slowly and agonizingly after the infection crept into their brain was mercifully small – but many more had died simply from thirst or exposure, too weak to care for themselves.  
  
Levi's suffered through it himself once when he was very young, so long ago that he can barely remember it anymore, and much later after that he had taken care of Farlan and Isabel when they had both fallen ill at once, in a particularly bad stroke of luck. He hasn’t seen it in years now, though.  The disease is much rarer outside the slums, and easily treated with the kind of care even a halfway decent doctor can provide.  
  
But Levi can recall the signs all the same: a sudden fever, swelling at the throat and under the arms, and most importantly of all, large, dark red blotches of the kind that he can now just barely make out on Armin’s chest.  
  
Something definitely shows on his face this time, and Armin looks even more uneasy than before. Uneasiness turns to fear when he glances down himself, and sees the marks on his body. “It wasn’t like that earlier,” he says in a small voice, brow furrowed. “What…?”  
  
“They call this dead beggar’s pox on the streets,” Levi says, taking care to keep his voice low enough that it doesn’t reach the small crowd that he knows has gathered outside the tent by now. “Do you know what that is?”  
  
Armin shakes his head, eyes wide. _Of course he wouldn’t know_ , Levi thinks to himself. He knows nothing about what kind of life Armin's lead before joining the Survey Corps, but Levi doesn’t think he’d last a day in the slums, regardless of his intelligence. Levi doesn’t waste time worrying about the backgrounds of most of his soldiers – except for Eren, of course, whose past is an issue of interest for obvious reasons – but if he was forced to guess, he’d imagine that a skinny and bookish boy like Armin is the product of a relatively comfortable home, with parents kind enough to love him despite his weakness. Of course Armin wouldn’t be familiar with the conditions of Levi’s own childhood.  
  
“Armin?” Mikasa’s voice, worried and just outside the tent. Levi sighs, and gets to his feet. There’s no point in trying to postpone the inevitable.  
  
When he steps outside he sees that all the other members of his squad are indeed awake and gathered around, just as he had expected. Everybody falls silent when Levi appears.  
  
“Armin’s sick,” he announces. Absolutely nobody looks surprised by this information. Eren’s clearly been filling them in.  
  
“Is he alright?” Mikasa asks. She steps forward, moving as if to push past Levi and into the tent, but he blocks her way, and then cuts her off as she starts to protest.  
  
“Don’t go near him.” He turns to the others, raising his voice a little. “Has anybody had dead beggar’s pox before?”  
  
Six pairs of eyes stare back at him uncomprehendingly. “ _What?_ ” says Jean, looking alarmed.  
  
Levi's ready to sigh in exasperation. He hadn’t really expected anything, but if even one Armin’s friends had experienced the disease before, the night ahead would have become much easier. The pox spreads easily, but after surviving it once, becoming infected once again is almost unheard of, at least in Levi’s experience. If somebody else had been immune to the disease, Levi could have left them the task of keeping an eye on Armin. As things are, Levi will not only have no choice but to see to Armin himself, but he’ll have to worry about the others becoming sick as well.  
  
“Dead beggar’s pox,” he explains wearily. “It’s spots and a fever, basically.”  
  
“Is there another name for it?” Eren asks, sounding genuinely interested. “My father used to be a doctor. I didn’t pay all that much attention to everything he did, but I don’t think I’ve heard of that one before…”  
  
“Be surprised if your father ever saw this one,” Levi interrupts him. “It’s in the cities. mostly, not all the way out by Maria.” He spares a glance over his shoulder at Armin, who's hugging his knees on the floor of the tent and staring out at Levi and the others with obvious trepidation. “Who knows how _you_ managed to get it.”  
  
“Armin and I both went into town a few days ago to meet with some messengers from headquarters, remember?” Connie volunteers.  
  
Levi can remember exactly what he’s talking about, and he never would have thought that such a short journey into what should have been a fairly decent part of the city would have been enough to make anybody sick like this, but…  
  
But whether it makes any sense or not, the evidence is right there in the tent behind him. “And did you eat any garbage, Armin?” Levi asks. “Get close with any dead bodies?” He’s simply being cruel, now, but for just this moment he can’t hold back his frustration at this dung heap of a situation that’s been dropped into his lap so suddenly.  
  
Armin shakes his head anyway, curling up into himself a little inside his blanket. “Don’t make fun of him,” Mikasa says darkly.  
  
“Is it serious?” Historia asks.  
  
Below the capitol, Levi had witnessed countless parents desperately pleading for money for a doctor while their child lay insensible with fever, and seen more than a few corpses lying in the gutter with the same mottled skin as Armin. But out here, with few options and a squad full of worried teenagers, it seems wise to put optimism over absolute honesty.  
  
“Armin’s going to be fine,” he says. “He’ll just feel like shit until we can get him out of here and to a proper doctor tomorrow.”  
  
Everyone seems satisfied with this verdict, thankfully. Now Levi can concentrate on the immediate difficulties that Armin’s sudden illness presents.  
  
“Eren, you can’t be in the same tent with him tonight.” Armin’s determination to hide his worsening condition has probably kept him isolated enough from the others that he hasn’t infected anybody – at least, Levi fervently hopes that’s the case – but having him too close to anybody but Levi is a risk, especially if Armin’s going to get even sicker as the night goes on.  
  
“Can I share with you?” Eren says hopefully. Levi’s tent, though made with the same material and dimensions as everybody else’s, has the distinct advantage of being exceptionally clean and well-maintained, not to mention not containing multiple grubby teenagers.  
  
Levi gives him a look. “There’s room for you with Jean and Connie. Start moving your things, but don’t get to close to Armin and don’t take anything he’s touched today.”  
  
Eren does as he’s told without protest, slipping past Levi and into the tent. The other boys grumble under their breath, but only for a few seconds. They all know better than to complain about an order, of course, but Levi can sense that concern for Armin is foremost in everybody’s mind at the moment.  
  
After Eren removes his bedding – maneuvering gingerly around Armin – the inside of the tent the two had shared seems much bigger than when Levi had first gone inside. It’s a relief, since Levi knows he’ll have to be in and out all night to check on Armin’s condition. The idea of spending much time crowded into a small, dark, space with the air heavy with disease makes his skin crawl, unpleasant memories of the past bubbling up inside his mind.  
  
All the others are still standing around outside the tent, looking at him. “What?” Levi demands. “Go to sleep, all of you. There’s nothing for you to do now, and we’re leaving early tomorrow.” 

Exchanging nervous glances, the little crowd starts to disperse, until Levi’s left by himself at last.  
  
“Captain?” Well, not quite by himself.  
  
He goes back into the tent, getting down on his knees to talk to Armin eye to eye.  
  
“Was that true?” Armin asks before Levi can say anything. There’s an expression on his face that Levi can’t quite read.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You know,” Armin says, eyes flicking down to the ground. “Am I really going to be okay?”  
  
“You’re calling me a liar?” Levi says.  
  
Armin jerks his head back up, startled. “What? Of course not, I didn’t mean-“  
  
Levi rolls his eyes. “Get some sleep if you can. I’ll be keeping an eye on you during the night, but call for me right away if you start feeling worse. That’s an order.”  
  
Armin nods obediently. After a few awkward seconds pass and he realizes that Levi has nothing else to say, he finally lies down and starts to adjust his blankets, a little self-consciously.  
  
Levi watches him for a moment longer. The boy is holding up admirably well despite how much of a fever Levi knows he has.  Armin is well enough to carry out a normal conversation, and he doesn’t seem to be in too much discomfort, though Levi has no idea how long that will last if the disease is still only in its earliest stages.  
  
Perhaps when Armin had gotten sick as a child at home, his parents had fussed over him, made him soup and brought him extra blankets. If he had gotten sick back at the barracks, there would have been doctors armed with training and medicine, and the option of a hospital if things took a turn for the worse. But instead, Armin’s gotten sick in the middle of a forest hours away from the nearest town, where all he has are trees, dirt, his useless friends, and Levi.

-

“I’m sorry,” Armin says again.  
  
Levi just grunts in response. Armin’s mumbled some kind of apology each time Levi comes back into the tent to check on him, and listening to it is getting repetitive. And a little uncomfortable, too, because despite Levi’s annoyance at the entire situation, none of it is _really_ Armin’s fault. Not his fault for getting sick and not realizing how serious it would become. Not his fault for getting worse instead of better as the night goes on.  
  
Levi had originally planned on spending the night in his own tent, going over to check on Armin every hour or so and dozing in between. But after only a couple of trips back and forth, it seems like he’s here for good. Armin’s temperature is a little higher each time Levi checks it, and he’s not as alert or talkative as he had been only a short time before.  Being able to keep a constant eye on Armin puts Levi more at ease in the face of all this, and so he's ended up here, sitting next to where Armin's currently struggling to sleep.   
  
There’s not much he can do at this point - Armin already has his own supply of water and blankets - and except for the few times that Levi's had to shoo away one Armin’s friends when they came back to hover outside the tent, hopeful for good news about Armin, it’s been a slow evening. The tent is quiet except for the faint nighttime sounds of the forest outside, and occasional rustle of blankets when Armin shifts restlessly.  
  
The irrational impulse to check Armin’s temperature again, again, _again_ , as if that would do any good, is gnawing at the back of Levi’s mind. To keep himself occupied, he’s been writing a lot. It’s normal for all the officers in the Survey Corps to keep a record of their squad’s activities, and Levi has a little notebook that he carries on excursions like this out of habit, even though it’s unlikely that anyone else will ever read the quick notes he's scrawled down here and there. The day’s previous activities had been summed up in only a few terse sentences, but now the notebook is quickly becoming a medical record of sorts.  
  
 _A. Arlert sick with fever + rash. “Dead beggar’s pox.”_ (Levi isn’t sure if there’s another, fancier, name for the disease, but he supposes he can go back and add it later if there is.) _Too late to leave camp, staying in place for the night.  
  
AA fever higher. Drank some water, can’t sleep.  
  
AA needed help standing and walking to relieve himself in woods._ ( _That_ had been fun, Armin had been mortified and Levi had been fed up and privately more than a little alarmed at how quickly Armin is losing strength.)  
  
 _Fever unchanged. Weakness + body aches_.  
  
Armin rolls onto his side, huffing unhappily. He’s turned away from Levi, giving Levi an opportunity to look at him closely without making Armin self-conscious. What he can make out of Armin's face at this angle is flushed, and his hair is messy from tossing and turning for the last few hours. A little while before, Levi had noticed that the red patches on his chest are getting darker and starting to spread.  
  
The boy doesn’t complain, though, Levi will give him that. Levi can tell from the careful way Armin moves, and from his own experience with dead beggar’s pox, that Armin certainly feels terrible by now, but he hardly says a word. When Levi asks him directly how he’s doing, Armin will quietly say that yes, he feels worse then before, yes, his whole body feels sore, but if he’s feeling sorry for himself, he’s doing a good job of hiding it.  
  
Levi had been much younger than Armin when he had gotten the pox. The experience has blurred into a miserable haze now, and all he has are faint memories of lying in a bed somewhere aching and weak with fever, feeling as if it would never end. The time Farlan and Isabel had gotten sick is much more recent, and the memories are coming back clearly now. Levi had been in the same position then, stuck caring for both of his friends when they had taken sick one by one in the space of only a few days. That had been miserable as well – being sick himself had been bad, but watching helplessly as Farlan's fever got worse by the hour, as Isabel struggled with even the simplest activities, had been somehow almost worse. Back then, just like tonight, Levi hadn’t been able to do much except try to keep his friends comfortable and hope, but on the other hand, at least he hadn’t been in a tent in approximately the middle of nowhere.  
  
Armin is fussing with his blankets. The night is only a little cold, and Armin has Levi’s blanket as well as his own – it’s not as if Levi’s likely to get any sleep tonight, anyway – but Levi can guess that still isn’t enough for him. If Levi’s experience is anything to go by, Armin has probably started getting chills by now, even though his body’s temperature is still hovering somewhere abnormally high. The other side effects of dead beggar’s pox always began to set in a few hours after the fever first appeared.  
  
Armin needs to get some sleep, but Levi can understand why that's difficult now. Armin’s lying sick in a rough tent somewhere far from home, with a disease whose name he hadn't even known until a few hours before burning through his body. Life in the Survey Corps is rarely easy or comfortable, and Armin has signed up for that the same way that Levi and all the rest of them have. But it’s hard not to wish for something better for him now, all the same.  
  
Armin curls into a ball, almost invisible beneath the blankets. He makes a small, unhappy, noise in the back of his throat.  
  
“All right?” Levi asks.  
  
Armin twists around – not without a wince, Levi notices – and looks over to Levi. “Huh? Oh, I…I’m fine, Captain.” He opens his mouth as if to add something, and then closes it again.  
  
“If there’s something new wrong with you, you need to tell me,” Levi reminds him. He stops himself short of adding, _if you hadn’t tried to hide it when you first felt sick, things wouldn’t have ended up like this._ Seeing Armin feeling guilty on top of everything else gives Levi no satisfaction whatsoever, despite how badly he’s itching to take out his frustration at this mess on _somebody_.  
  
“I’m…a little cold,” Armin admits.  
  
Like this, Levi can see that Armin’s hands are shaking where they grip the blankets, just barely enough to be visible. _Just a little?_ Levi wants to scoff, at the same time as the hum of worry that’s been at the back of his mind for roughly the past three hours gets a little louder.  
  
He pushes both feelings aside. “There aren’t any more blankets.” One of the others would probably be happy to give up their own bedding for Armin’s sake, but nobody’s tried to come by the tent for the last hour or so, and Levi’s hoping that they’ll all stay asleep and out of his hair for the rest of the night.  
  
“I know.” Armin’s face is unhappy but resigned. The boy’s meekness is almost aggravating. _Go on_ , Levi thinks. _Whine about how bad you’re feeling, order me to do something about it, cry for your mother. This is worse for you than it is for me._  
  
Instead, when Levi has nothing else to say, Armin just turns back around and quietly curls up again, pulling the two blankets he does have up around his ears. Levi watches him, feeling restless.  
  
Farlan and Isabel had both gotten chills too, back on the streets years and years ago. The weather had been even colder than it is now, and warm clothing and blankets had been in short supply, and so in the end the three of them had slept huddled up together for at least one or two nights, Levi in the middle and his friends pressing close to him for warmth on either side.  
  
He can’t do that with Armin. It would be too awkward by far for both of them, and it’s not even _necessary_ , not really. Armin will make it through the night one way or another, and he’ll be in a proper bed with medicine and all the blankets he wants before the next day ends.  
  
Armin’s still curled up, back to Levi. Levi can’t be quite sure, but it looks as if Armin’s shoulders might be trembling.  
  
 _Dammit_ , Levi thinks.  
  
He unfolds himself from the position he’s been sitting in for the better part of the evening, setting his notebook aside, and reaches forward to tug Armin’s blankets down. “Armin.”  
  
Armin’s eyes had been squeezed tightly closed, but now they fly open in surprise. “What is it?”  
  
“Scoot over,” Levi orders, trying to make it sound like a perfectly unremarkable request.  
  
“What?” Armin looks confused and a little alarmed, as if Levi has suddenly started speaking gibberish.  
  
“You’re cold, right?”  
  
“Yes, but…” Armin finally seems to understand what Levi has in mind, and his eyes go wide again. “Oh,” he stutters. “I-it’s fine, Captain, you really don't have to…”  
  
Armin’s light enough that it’s easy for Levi to shove him to the side, leaving room for Levi to get under the covers next to him. The blankets are scratchy and smell like sweat and disease, and Armin is uncomfortably, unnaturally, warm at his side. _He had better appreciate this_ , Levi thinks to himself.  
  
Armin shuts his mouth once Levi’s actually in bed with him, keeping his body still and rigid and watching Levi uncertainly out of the corner of his eyes.  
  
“It’s warmer like this,” Levi explains impatiently. “Or do you want me to leave?”  
  
They’re close enough that Levi can hear Armin swallow as he considers this. “No,” Armin says at last. “But are you sure…?”  
  
“Soldiers do this all the time, when they have to,” Levi says. He’s thinking about Farlan and Isabel again. “It’s fine.”  
  
“Oh.” Armin ponders this. Levi can feel his body starting to relax.  
  
At last, Armin turns over so that he’s facing Levi and moves an inch or two in his direction, as close as he apparently dares to get. Levi adjusts the blankets until they’re spread out over both of them.  
  
“Sorry, Captain,” Armin whispers. Levi can feel Armin’s breath against the side of his arm as he speaks.  
  
“Go to sleep, Armin,” he says tiredly.

As strange as sharing a bed with Armin is, it means that Levi gets the chance to sleep after all. He’s just as exhausted as the rest of his squad is, and it’s not long before his automatic resistance to letting his guard down this close to another person fades, and his eyelids start to get heavy. Armin is an inconspicuous presence at his side, not saying anything more and not drawing nearly as close to Levi as Levi guesses he probably wants to.  
  
But there’s not as much to worry about now, with Armin a bit more comfortable and close enough that Levi will notice easily if there’s a change in his condition, so Levi doesn’t fight it when he feels himself starting to slip into sleep.  
  
-  
  
He jolts back into consciousness sometime later, disoriented and jumpy. He’s still half-caught in the nightmare he’d been having only seconds before – Titans everywhere, Farlan and Isabel and everyone else he’s ever cared about dead on the ground at his feet – and it takes a while for him to get his bearings. He’s not in his regular room back at the barracks, and there’s an unfamiliar body pressed tight against his side, slight and bony and _hot_ -  
  
“Armin!” Levi manages to extricate himself from the tangle Armin’s made of their limbs, and gives the boy’s shoulder a shake.  
  
Armin squeezes his eyes shut and tries to move back against Levi. When Levi brushes his bangs aside and presses his palm against Armin’s forehead, his temperature feels even higher than before.  
  
The last vestiges of sleep clinging to Levi disappear in a panicky burst. “Armin, come on. Wake up.” When Armin still doesn’t respond, Levi grasps him under his arms and hauls him up into a sitting position himself. Armin groans in protest but starts to show a little more life, blinking and shaking his head sleepily.  
  
Levi watches him, only half noticing that he's chewing on his own lip. Despite its ominous name, dead beggar’s pox had a fair survival rate, even in the harsh conditions of the slums. But there were always a few unlucky people…  
  
“Do you know who I am?” Levi demands. The surest sign that a victim was beyond saving had always been when they started to lose their grip on reality.  
  
“What?” Without anything to lean against, Armin's starting to tilt unsteadily forwards, as if even keeping his head upright requires more strength than he can spare.  
  
Levi grabs him by the shoulders and gives him another shake. “What’s my name?”  
  
“Levi,” Armin says slowly, looking utterly confused as to why he's being asked. He’s able to give his own name and the year as well, and even say where they are, which is enough to put Levi’s mind at least slightly at ease. Armin’s fever is still far too high, though, and he looks much worse than before.  
  
Levi fumbles around in the dark tent until his hand finds a flask of water, still mostly full. “Here,” he orders. “Drink.”  
  
Armin takes the flask obediently, but his hands shake as he lifts it to his mouth, sending some water dripping down onto his shirt. Levi watches impatiently, itching with the urge to hold it steady for him. He holds himself back, mostly thanks to the realization that if Armin can’t drink by himself anymore, it will mean that his condition has gotten more serious than Levi wants to consider. Armin manages in the end, swallowing what water makes it to his lips eagerly, though when he’s done he sets the flask down as heavily as if it’s made of lead.  
  
“How do you feel?” Levi asks him.  
  
“Bad,” Armin whispers, dragging the word out miserably. If Armin’s finally ready to complain so easily, Levi thinks, he must really be feeling awful.  
  
He lets Armin lie back down, and racks his brain for something else to do. There has to be some way to bring Armin’s fever down, or at the very least keep the boy more comfortable, but Levi’s no doctor and he’s never thought to be prepared for something like this before. He gives the idea of waking Eren up and asking for his opinion an amount of consideration that would have seemed ridiculous only an hour or two earlier, before deciding that all the medical knowledge Eren can contribute is probably dubiously second-hand at best. There’s no way to get ahold of Eren without waking everybody else up as well, anyway.  
  
One thing Levi can do is see to it that Armin has plenty of fluids, to fight the disease burning up his body from the inside. There’s more water in Levi’s own tent, but when he stands up to go fetch it, Armin turns painfully to look at him, startled.  
  
“You’re going?”  
  
“Just to my tent,” Levi promises. “Just to get you some more water, I’ll be back soon.”  
  
“I don’t need more water,” Armin complains. “I'm _cold_.”  
  
“Okay,” Levi says, too hurried to try and reassure him properly. “Okay, just wait for a second.” He ducks out of the tent before Armin can respond. The air outside is chilly and clear, a bracing contrast from the cramped and stifling tent. Through the trees the moon is just barely visible, high in the sky. Nobody stirs in either of the other tents as he passes.  
  
Inside his own tent, he grabs the water quickly, glancing over the rest of his things as if a supply of medicine could have appeared out of nowhere since the last time he was there. He suddenly wonders when Armin last ate. Sasha had killed a deer for everyone’s dinner several hours ago, but Levi hadn’t been paying any attention to Armin then. If the boy had been feeling bad even earlier in the day, he might not have had much of an appetite, and if Armin hasn’t had food recently, it would explain some of how he’s lost his strength so quickly. There’s nothing for him to eat now except for a few of the hard and tasteless biscuits the soldiers are given as emergency supplies, and Levi isn’t quite ready for the slow process coaxing Armin into eating something right now would surely be, but he’ll have to make sure that Armin eats in the morning, no matter how sick he is.  
  
 _In the morning, before we get_ out _of here_ , Levi thinks. It can’t come soon enough.  
  
When he gets back to Armin, he pours a little of the water onto the corner of one of the blankets, and dabs at Armin’s face and chest with the damp cloth. He’s not sure if that will do anything for the fever, but Armin doesn’t seem to mind it, at least. Levi can see that the red patches on his chest have spread all the way up to the base of his neck.  
  
“Where’s Eren?” Armin asks, slowly turning his head to take in his surroundings.  
  
“Asleep,” Levi tells him briskly. “With Jean and Connie. You should sleep too.”  
  
“You woke me up,” Armin mumbles. Being sick appears to be making him much more argumentative than usual.  
  
“And now I’m telling you to go to sleep again,” Levi says, setting the water within arm’s reach. When he starts to lie back down, Armin burrows against him without hesitation.  
  
Levi narrowly resists the urge to chuckle. “Still cold?”  
  
Armin nods almost invisibly, face pressed into Levi’s shoulder.  
  
As skinny as he is, Armin’s still tall enough that it’s a little awkward having him huddled so tightly at Levi’s side. Levi tries to adjust their positions, but stops immediately when Armin whines in discomfort.  
  
“That _hurts_.”  
  
“What does?” Levi asks. He tries to speak as though he’s talking to Isabel back when she had been in particularly bad shape, keeping either impatience or concern from creeping into his voice.  
  
Armin frowns. “My arms and legs. Everything.”  
  
Muscle and joint pain was a common enough side effect of dead beggar’s pox, and one that Armin had already mentioned earlier in the night. Levi should have realized that would be worse now, along with the rest of Armin’s symptoms.  
  
“All right.” Levi leans over and cups one of Armin’s elbows in one hand, squeezing it lightly in what he hopes is a comforting gesture. When Armin doesn’t protest, he moves onto the other one as well, and then slides his hand under the blankets to rest on the knob of Armin’s knee. He hesitates. Even though they’re both clothed, touching Armin like this feels a little inappropriate, especially with Armin much younger and under his command to boot. But Armin is in pain, and tonight has been strange enough already, so after a second Levi gives Armin’s legs a rub as well. “Better?” he asks after he’s finished.  
  
Armin makes a noncommittal noise, but he seems to be a little more at ease, at least for the time being. Levi starts to get them both situated under the blankets again, taking care to be gentle with Armin. In the end, Levi lets Armin rest practically on top of him, huddled up in the crook of Levi’s arm with his hair tickling Levi’s chin. It’s closer then Levi would really prefer, under normal circumstances, but Armin seems to like it and Levi supposes that he can put up with it for one night.  
  
Things settle down, but Armin doesn’t go back to sleep. He fidgets against Levi, breath noisy and ragged. After about ten minutes of this, Levi’s had enough.  
  
“Armin, go to sleep.”  
  
“I can’t,” Armin answers, voice muffled by the fact that he’s speaking more or less into Levi’s armpit. “I don’t _feel_ good.”  
  
Levi sighs, making Armin rise and fall where he’s halfway draped on top of him. “You’ll feel better if you rest. Just try.”  
  
There’s silence for a moment. Then: “Am I gonna die?” Armin asks, out of nowhere.  
  
Levi pushes himself up onto his elbows, nearly dislodging Armin. He knows the boy’s sick, but he wouldn’t have ever expected something melodramatic like that from _Armin_ , of all people. Armin's supposed to be the sensible one. Levi almost laughs, out of surprise more than anything else, but the unhappy look on Armin’s face is one hundred percent serious.  
  
“Sina’s tits, _no_.” Levi says at last. “You’ll be fine, Armin. We’re going to get out of here as soon as it’s light, and get you to a doctor.”  
  
“You’re sure?” Armin asks, sounding unconvinced. “This dead…whatever you called it earlier, it sounds bad. And I feel _awful_ , I can’t even sit up anymore…”  
  
“It’s just a stupid name,” Levi says tersely. “And you’ve got a fever, and it’s making you feel like shit. But you’ll be _fine_. Don’t get worried over nothing.”  
  
“You’re worried.” Armin says quietly.  
  
Levi blinks. “I’m not,” he says automatically.  
  
“Yes, you are,” Armin insists. “I can tell. And you wouldn’t be…be doing all this if it wasn’t bad.”  
  
Apparently even in his current state, Armin is sharper than Levi had given him credit for. Levi’s lost for a way to respond to that, but Armin seems to take Levi’s silence as the answer he’s been fearing. His face falls even more, and he turns his head away, seeming to shrink in on himself.  
  
“Hey,” Levi says hastily. He twists until he can take Armin’s chin in one hand, making the boy look back up at him. “ _You aren’t going to die_ , you idiot. Listen to me.”  
  
Armin says nothing, cheeks flushed and brow furrowed unhappily. Levi is abruptly terrified that he’s going to start to cry.  
  
 _What do normal people do in situations like this?_ Levi wonders in frustration. He’s never had any problems getting his soldiers to obey even in the face of death, but that ability isn’t much good when it comes to dealing with someone who's feverish and scared. Again, he finds himself gloomily thinking of what Armin’s life before the Survey Corps had surely been like. Despite how much he’s had to struggle to keep up with the others, Armin’s always been a diligent and hardworking soldier, determined not to be a burden – that's the thing that’s gotten them into this mess in the first place, in fact. But still, it would be too much to expect the boy to stay tough even at a time like this. Armin’s probably regretting ever enlisting right now, thinking about how if he had chosen an easier life he could be home instead, resting in his own bed and surrounded by people who care about him, and probably not even sick in the first place…  
  
Another memory of Levi’s past encounters with dead beggar’s pox drifts into his mind, and this time it’s about him, not Isabel or Farlan. An impossibly long time ago, when Levi had been sick, he had been small enough that _he_ had cried, restless and uncomfortable and frightened in much the same way that Armin is now.  
  
Levi can’t remember whether or not there had been anyone to take care of him back then – based on the general quality of his childhood, Levi’s privately a little impressed that he had managed to survive the disease – but suddenly he has a faint impression of a cloth wiping the tears and snot off his face, a gentle hand smoothing his hair.  
  
There’s nothing else to it, and in fact, Levi’s almost ready to doubt that he’s even remembering correctly, so out of place the indistinct kindness is compared to the rest of his memories of his early years. But whether or not anyone in Levi’s life has ever really been inclined to gestures like that, Levi thinks that someone in Armin’s life surely has been.  
  
He lies down properly again, gathering Armin against him. Like this, it’s easy for him to bring one hand up to the back of Armin’s head. Armin’s hair is soft, and not particularly clean, but Levi works his fingers into it anyway, rubbing little circles into Armin’s scalp down to where the boy’s skull meets his thin neck.  
  
“Captain?” he hears Armin ask faintly.  
  
“Sleep,” Levi says, for what feels like the millionth time that night. “Just go to sleep, you’ll feel better in the morning.”  
  
Armin sighs, so heavily that Levi can feel his chest expand where their bodies are touching. He squirms against Levi for a couple of seconds, and then finally goes still.  
  
“That’s right,” Levi tells him, feeling encouraged. “Rest. Good boy.” He regrets his last words immediately – talking like that makes him sound old and rather creepy – but Armin doesn’t seem to notice.  
  
“Um. Good,” Levi tries again. “Good.”  
  
Eventually he stops talking and simply strokes Armin’s hair, and then. before he even realizes that it’s happening, Levi falls asleep again.

-

When he opens his eyes, it’s early, so early that only the faintest glow from the rising sun outside filters into the tent. He wakes up slowly this time, feeling drowsy and warm. Somebody’s pressed heavily against him on one side – that’s Armin, Levi remembers. Armin’s sick, and Levi had stayed with him all night and slept beside him to keep him warm. Armin seems to be asleep himself now, which is a relief. Levi hopes that a night’s rest has done him some good, that he’ll wake up better than he had been in the middle of the night.  
  
As Levi becomes more aware of his surroundings, something feels like it’s a little off, something he can’t quite put his finger on. Something wrong with Armin? He turns his attention more closely to the boy. He still feels hot, but not more than he had been earlier, and maybe even a little less. Levi can feel Armin’s chest rise and fall evenly as he breathes, and-  
  
“ _Ugh_.” Levi recoils automatically. Armin is absolutely dripping with sweat, so much that it’s soaking his shirt and dampening the blankets.  And Levi.  
  
He’s attempting to wipe off the shoulder and arm that Armin had been lying on top of with a clean corner of one of the blankets, when he realizes that he’s woken Armin up.  
  
“Is it morning?"  Armin asks, voice thick with sleep. He glances around blearily.  
  
“Almost.” Levi says, a little distracted by the fact that his skin is still crawling at the thought of having had Armin sweat all over him for who only knows how long.  
  
Armin takes notice of what Levi's doing, and then glances down at himself. “I’m all wet,” he observes calmly.  
  
“You are,” Levi agrees through gritted teeth. “Your fever broke,” - Levi ducks forward to check Armin's temperature and yes, he’s definitely cooler than before – “And now you’re sweating all over the place.”  
  
“Oh,” Armin says. He’s talking and moving like he’s still half-asleep, but he seems to be in better spirits than before, at least.  
  
“Take your shirt off,” Levi orders him. “It’s disgusting.” While Armin’s slowly occupying himself with that, Levi goes to work trying to flip the blankets so that the still-dry outer layer is turned inwards. Everything will have to be washed thoroughly at the very least, and maybe even destroyed, as soon as they've returned.  
  
Armin takes a long time figuring out how to work each button, but gets the job done eventually. With Armin’s shirt off, Levi can see that the red patches on his chest don't appear to have spread any further. It’s a promising sign.  
  
“How do you feel?” Levi asks.  
  
Armin thinks about it. “Okay,” he says at last. “Tired.”  
  
“Does your body hurt?”  
  
A shrug. “Kind of. Not as bad as last night.”  
  
“Good,” Levi says, busying himself with folding up Armin’s filthy shirt. “That means you’re getting better.”  
  
“Oh,” Armin murmurs. He starts to slowly lie back down again, looking ready to go back to sleep. “That’s good.”  
  
Levi looks him over. Armin’s still far from back to normal, but with a bit of luck he’ll stay on the mend, especially once they can finally get a doctor for him. The largest part of Levi's work seems to be done.  
  
Instead of being relieved, Levi finds that he’s feeling oddly restless. He’s alert and ready to get on with the day now, even though it’s still just barely light outside and the rest of his squad will surely still be asleep for a while. He doesn't want to lie back down – the idea is a little more awkward now, anyway, now that Armin doesn’t seem to need him anymore – so after Levi's spent a few minutes making sure that everything inside the tent is orderly and ready to be packed up as soon as the other are awake, he finds himself sitting at Armin’s side again, fighting the urge to drum his fingers on the ground like a bored schoolboy.  
  
“Were you awake all night?” Armin asks suddenly, making Levi start. The boy has his back to him at the moment, and Levi had assumed that he was asleep again.  
  
“No,” Levi says. “I got some sleep.”  
  
“You had to stay up because of me,” Armin says, sounding regretful. “I’m sorry.”  
  
Levi has had more than enough of Armin’s apologies, and he’s about to tell him as much, but just as he's opening his mouth, Armin speaks again.  
  
“Thank you, Captain.”  
  
Levi shuts his mouth again. “It’s nothing,” he finally says, after a few seconds have passed. “Just don't pull any shit like this again, Armin, I’m serious.”  
  
“Okay,” Armin agrees softly.  
  
Another long silence follows, during which Levi feels even more fidgety than earlier. He tries to guess what time it is, and how long it will be until he can reasonably force everybody else awake and get them moving. But, on the other hand, he thinks, it’s certainly good for Armin to get as much of a chance to rest as possible.  
  
Levi can’t put up with sitting by himself with nothing to do for very long, though. “Armin?” he asks, voice low, thinking to himself that Armin probably won’t even hear him, that he’s probably asleep for real this time.  
  
He's wrong, though. “Yes?” Armin answers sleepily, not bothering to turn around.  
  
In all honesty, Levi doesn’t even have anything in particular he wants to say. He hadn’t expected a response, and really, he shouldn’t even be keeping the boy awake right now, Armin needs as much sleep as he can get after the rough night he’s had…  
  
“What did your parents do when you were sick? Back before you started training?” Levi finds himself asking, inexplicably.  
  
Armin doesn’t answer for a long time, so long that Levi starts to think that his earlier reply had just been a fluke, just Armin muttering things in his sleep.  
  
But he’s wrong again. “My parents died,” Armin says. His voice is steady and quiet. “A while ago.”  
  
Oh. Levi should have known better than to assume. Especially given the fact that as far as he’s aware, the members of his squad whose pasts he _is_ aware of have only maybe one or two living relatives put together, _especially_ since he’s pretty sure he can remember now that Armin’s from Shiganshina itself along with Eren and Mikasa, right where Wall Maria had first been breached.  
  
“But my grandfather used to read to me.” Armin’s voice breaks the uneasy pause. “When I was sick and couldn’t sleep, he’d read to me until I started feeling tired.”  
  
“You want me to get out some books for you?” Levi asks. He’s eager to move the conversation along, and his automatic response comes out a little more sarcastic than he had really intended.  
  
Armin doesn’t seem bothered. Levi even hears a sound that, though faint, sounds suspiciously like a snort of laughter.  
  
“What about you, Captain?” Armin says.  
  
“What?”  
  
The blankets rustle as Armin rolls over to look at Levi. “What did your parents do when you got sick?”  
  
It’s Levi’s turn to snort now. He gives Armin an incredulous look. “Nobody was fucking reading to me, I'll tell you that.”  
  
Armin smiles faintly.  
  
“Did you ever get sick like this?” Armin asks, after a minute or two has passed. “With this…what’s it called again?”  
  
“Dead beggar’s pox. And yes,” Levi says. “And a couple people I knew had it too, a long time ago.”  
  
“Did you take care of them too?”  
  
“Yeah.” It had been only a little while earlier that Levi had been thinking about how Isabel had improved a little after just one night as well, though it had taken several more days for her to recover completely. Farlan had been stuck with the worst of the fever for even longer.  
  
“I bet you did a good job.” Armin yawns, eyelids drooping.  
  
“Yeah,” Levi says again. The inside of the tent is definitely getting brighter. The sun must be fully over the horizon by now. “But they died not long after anyway,” he finds himself saying, even though Armin hasn’t asked and almost definitely doesn’t care.  
  
Armin frowns. “Oh.”  
  
Silence again. Then, Armin shifts under the blankets, rolling to one side. “Are you going to lie down again?” he asks.  
  
Levi shrugs. “It’s practically morning. Everyone else will be up soon.” He can’t help adding: “You should try to sleep more, though.”  
  
“So should you,” Armin says. “Aren’t you tired?”  
  
“I’ll have plenty of time to sleep when we get back.”  
  
“There’s time now,” Armin says sensibly.  
  
The idea of going back to sleep, for all that the makeshift bed is crowded and probably covered in germs, thanks to Armin, is starting to seem more and more appealing. The night has been anything but restful, and Levi's starting to feel the impact of that more strongly now.   
  
He lifts the blankets up and slides underneath. Levi lies with his back to Armin, feeling very aware of the boy lying a few inches away. The arrangement definitely feels stranger now that he’s no longer as worried about Armin.  
  
Armin yawns again, stretching. His feet knock against Levi’s under the blankets. “Thank you again, Captain,” he says sleepily. “Good night.”  
  
It’s kind of a ridiculous thing to say, considering that birds are already singing in the trees outside, but Levi finds that he can’t sum up the energy to comment on that. Instead, he bites back a yawn of his own, and closes his eyes.  
  



End file.
